The sinners: "What sort of flood? If He sends a fire flood, against
that we know how to protect ourselves. If it is a flood of waters,
then, if the waters bubble up from the earth, we will cover them with
iron rods, and if they descend from above, we know a remedy against
that, too."
Noah: "The waters will ooze out from under your feet, and you will not
be able to ward them off."
Partly they persisted in their obduracy of heart because Noah had made
known to them that the flood would not descend so long as the pious
Methuselah sojourned among them. The period of one hundred and twenty
years which God had appointed as the term of their probation having
expired, Methuselah died, but out of regard for the memory of this
pious man God gave them another week's respite, the week of mourning
for him. During this time of grace, the laws of nature were suspended,
the sun rose in the west and set in the east. To the sinners God gave
the dainties that await man in the future world, for the purpose of
showing them what they were forfeiting.[19] But all this proved
unavailing, and, Methuselah and the other pious men of the generation
having departed this life, God brought the deluge upon the earth.[20]